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Theme and story in the play
THEME AND STORY Theme and story in the play STORY ADAPTED TO PLAY-FORM-FULL COMPREHENSION OF THE STORY-A REASON FOR THINGS KNOWLEDGE OF SUBJECT-MATTER -NOVELTYTHE46 SLICE OF LIFE" DRAMA ABILITY TO SELECT STORY-ONE THEME CARRIED THROUGHOUT CHANGE IN PLOT THE PROPAGANDA PLAY-THE DEAD ISSUE Story adapted to play-form. In scope, the play is more closely allied to the short story than to the novel. The former deals with one episode and its incidents, while the latter may be entirely lacking in story. Witness the autobiographical novels of Thackeray, Dickens, the BrontEs—interesting, but relating many incidents and episodes, and covering a lifetime in characterization. The play, like the short story, must contain one central motive or idea, and the working out of that one idea by whatever lesser attendant matters the main theme demands. Having a story to tell, you must decide whether it is adapted to the play-form. Many stories are interesting; all are not necessarily dramatic. Some are dramatic, but too simple to work out through a play. As a rule, the play presents the dynamic phases of life, the crises, the climaxes. Sometimes these may be tragic, sometimes humorous. The novelist can lead us up to one of these crises through many chapters, by way of many contributing causes and much psychological analysis. Your dramatist can only touch on these causes in his exposition. Events, which in a story cover many days, must in a play be of such a nature as to reconcile us to their covering but a few minutes. Sometimes unusual means are taken to bring about this reconciliation. In On Trial we have a story, absolutely single and progressive, yet giving the impression to many unthinking critics of being the reverse. The play is concerned with a murder trial. Instead of forcing us to listen to evidence which might be tedious coming from the witness chair, we are allowed to see the story the witness relates as it actually happened. Therefore, though in each case, the witness goes back over the years, the narration is taking just about the time during which we are following it, and the play progresses just as a real trial does, just as any good detective story does, with a really forward, though often seemingly backward, move to its conclusion. It is unique, but really not as iconoclastic as many of the critics seemed to think. To prove this statement, comparing this play to a detective story instead of a moving-picture, read C. F. Home's definition of a detective story in his "Technique of the Novel. " Just why the movingpicture comparison was made by so many of the critics on the morning after the opening is not exactly clear. Several months after seeing the play, the present writer saw If you decide that your story is suitable for the play-form, you will find it helpful to write it out as a story. This is not a scenario, merely a test of its dramatic qualities. Arnold Bennett says that a story which is not capable of rendering viva voce is not worth writing. By the same token, a story which cannot be written out is not worth dramatization. It is not enough, however, just to have a story ; it must be of a kind susceptible of dramatic treatment. To see it written is a fair test. This method serves another purpose: it will show you as no other means can just what is in your story. As an instance: an actress had written a play. She was a good raconteur, dramatic in gesture, enthusiastic, earnest. She told the story of her play to several fellowplayers who listened with the deepest interest. She certainly had a "story. " According to Bennett, rendered aloud, it fulfilled all requirements. Then, in turn, each of the group read the play. It was a curious circumstance : not three-quarters of the material in her mind had been transferred to her manuscript. Just this one little test—writing it first as a complete story—would have shown her the enormous amount she had omitted. Comprehension of the story. Be sure you know fully all there is in your story. Sometimes after you start you will find more, perhaps less, than you a moving-picture in which these same devices were used, and it gave the same impression of novelty as had the play—proving that the method was no more usual to the photoplay than to the drama. It belongs to the detective story form. thought. Occasionally one will have a story with material enough for three plays—and not know it. Good stuff is so often wasted in this way, because the author does not realize it exists. I remember reading a play which simply bulged with unused opportunity. There was a knowledge of stagecraft and a certain sense of construction. But the story was weak. The hero was blind, for no reason that I could discover; certainly no dramatic use was made of the fact. He might just as well have been lame, or perfectly sound, for that matter. There was a murder, and the cause held possibilities ; the situation went nowhere. Alone, it might have made a good detective story. Another episode was big enough for a play by itself, but was only partially developed. One ideaafter another went by the wall because the author did not know his own story. A reason for things. Have a reason for things. I shall speak of this more fully when we come to prepare the actual scenario. But it is enough to say now that, if you make a character so-and-so, it must be because it is necessary to have him just that kind of a character. If, on the other hand, it is your character which has caused your play, then the situations to which that character gives rise must have their reason in his personality. Subject-matter. Know your subject-matter fully, whether you are writing a newspaper squib or a dramatic composition in five acts and prologue. I am reminded just here of a story in a well-known magazine. The heroine was a girl who felt she was a genius, but her plain and simple country life offered no altars on which the fires could burn. Her family scrimped and saved that she might go abroad to study people and the world. Because of her Art, she haughtily refused the hand and heart of a young professor in her home town, and sailed away. Anxiously the folks back home waited for the golden flood to flow from her gifted pen. But she had not yet found quite what she sought. Then there drifted to her rumors of a book, a clever novel, written by her one-time lover. She was disdainful, but curiosity finally prompted her to send for the book. It was wonderful, yet sweet and homelike. He had used as his models just the dear people among whom he lived, and the story glowed with truth. While she—it is here that the moral enters. It points exactly my meaning. Unless you are writing burlesque or fantasia, use people and happenings within your comprehension, if not your actual experience. Do not lay your scenes within a walk of life with which you are totally unfamiliar. If your knowledge of society is bounded by the small village churchsocial or a factory ball, do not write a play dealing with the exclusive circles of London or New York society. Another apparently useless remark, you say. One would think so. Yet I see play-manuscripts all too often dealing with all phases of " high-society " that would be funny if the attempts were not pathetic in their self-betrayal. Why, oh, why, will people try to write of the doings of the fashionable world when every word they put on paper screams their ignorance of the most ordinary usages of that world? Novelty. Novelty is at most times the demand of manager and public. Do not let yourself think for one single instant that you can ignore the importance of either demand ; their claims must be met. You need not be so sure that compliance with the desires of the "crowd " is despicable. The play cannot exist without the public. No matter how great your message, if they will neither listen nor read, it does not reach them. You must get their attention. Be certain that in an effort to writedown to your public you do not write below it. Margaret Mayo says she loves her audience. Certainly, the man who despises it will not be heeded. Shakespeare's genius, his great thoughts, his almost prophetic philosophies, did not cause him to forget the public. He provided entertainment, color, mystery, excitement. His greatness reached them through a medium they understood, and he did not deny the value of that medium. Since Shakespeare did not disdain novelty, neither need you. Either your story or its handling must have something unusual or "different. " The Civil War drama, just by way of example, at this present writing is almost a dead issue, and to reach a manager for production must have some unique or exceptional qualification to bring it to his notice. The "slice of life" drama. The kinds of " story " available in the theater of to-day cannot be classified. The field is wide and varied as life itself. So far is the drama endeavoring to transcribe reality, that many modern writers make frequent use of what Bernard Shaw aptly calls "a slice of life "—an episode which has not reached either a catastrophe or a "happy ending " by the final curtain. Such plays, however, require expert handling; the danger of a very real—and perhaps excusable—dissatisfaction on the part of the audience is evident. There is also a difference of opinion as to the entire propriety of this phase, as the drama represents not so much a mere segment of life as a boiled-down, concrete essence of it ; that is, as several writers have said: it is not only a picture of life, but a judgment on it. The theme in the "slice of life " play leaves the conclusion of the argument to the spectator. Therefore, logically, the argument, or syllogism, is incomplete. Ability to select story. The ability to select a good story is not so rare as one might think. We only see the writer's handling of it, which may be so bad as to kill his whole idea. Recently the mail brought a play—in long-hand—which on reading startled with the greatness, the actual grandeur, of the theme chosen. It lay in a practically undeveloped field so far as modern drama is concerned, and was a subject for a master, one able to think greatly and feel deeply. It was told as a schoolgirl tells a tale to children. The writer's imagination was all right, since she had been able to conceive of this subject as one for the drama. But she had "bitten off more than she could chew. " The fault lay not so much in this truth as in the fact that the writer lid not know it, did not for one instant realize the tctual bigness of the matter itself. To choose a iubject greater than your capacity is rather a virtue Ilan otherwise, since it proves the largeness of your riewpoint and the power of your imagination. But lot to realizethe strength of your own ideas puts you in the class with the student of the art-school vho insists on painting in oils from the nude with Ill its marvelous flesh tints, planes, and modeling—. :o say nothing of the mixing of color and use of nmsh—instead of sitting down in front of a few )1aster cubes and pyramids to learn drawing and perpective. Such a student has a long way to go, bemuse he lacks the eye to see the problem which iuch a model and medium present to the person vho has not yet even learned to draw. So often, too, a really good story, one which would )e entirely within the capability of the writer if :old differently, is utterly spoiled by his use of this empting but entirely unfamiliar form of writing. For that reason it is well to realize that even a good ;tory or situation does not necessarily make that corn)osite structure—a play. In addition there must be vhat William Archer, in About the Theater, speaks tf as "study of character, observation of life, originality of method. " One theme carried throughout. I have said thereIfnust be but one theme or motive in a play ; be sure you carry it through your composition. Without central theme or argument, you have nothing on vhich to hangyour play. A certain drama—only in manuscript—started out giving the impression that it would deal with a phase of the labor question. It was badly done, but the idea was there. It was completely lost sight of before the end of Act Two, and the reader was plunged into a maze of impossible " society " situations. Anything which delays or turns aside or fogs the steady moving forward of your story is out of place ; and, unless handled by a very skilled craftsman, this "matter out of place" will show itself very plainly as a detriment to the play's success. Theme and subject. There is a distinction between theme or motive, and subject. "The soul of jea play is its theme, and the body of a play is its story. -1A play may have a great theme and an inadequate story, or an interesting story, and scarcely any theme at all. " The motive of Othellois the devastating power and unreason of jealousy. The subject is the particular phase of jealousy displayed by Othello and the causes leading thereto. The story or subject must be original in treatment and expression ; the motive may be as old as the hills. Anold theme can be treated in a new way: new light may be brought to bear upon it from a totally different angle. Otherwise, all of the available material would have been used up centuries ago. There are only just so many human combinations, just so many laws of human relationships. But the differences in their combinations, the variation in these relationships, are well-nigh as many as the individuals included in them. The point of view in no two people is identical. Therefore, in spite of a certain limitation in theme, there is a wide area in expression. There may be half a dozen stories to express the theme you have in mind. Your skill is shown in choosing the best and most dramatic of these stories. Change in plot. A change in story or plot during the course of a play is an even worse fault than a change of theme, because more glaringly noticeable to the audience. It is not sufficient to give an exact portrait of life, the portrait must be explained ; not to explain the matter which it was evident at the start you intended should be unfolded or disentangled is almost fatal: which is another difficulty of the "slice of life" form of drama. I have seen this complete change of plot in the short confines of a one-act play—by a novice, needless to state. It is not an error apt to be made by an experienced writer. Propaganda plays. As a' matter of motive and story, I have frequently encountered what might be called the " propaganda " play—the play whose motive is to convert an audience to a certain way of thinking on some subject of public policy or interest. It is a difficult medium to use for such a purpose, and best let alone by the novice until he is more familiar with his tools ; otherwise he will only succeed in being deadly dull. An audienoe hates to be preached at—unless it is done deftly. The sermon form of play is by no means an impossibility. It has been done, and done successfully in the last few years, but "a play that is a bore cannot claim salvation on the ground that it is a sermon. " In dealing with the propaganda play I am not so much referring to the modern form of morality or thesis play—most people are agreed that certain things are good, and their opposites bad—nor do I mean the dynamic type of play intended to arouse the public conscience, but to the style of play which deals with a subject on which there are distinctly several points of view and in the discussion of which an author risks offending or even insulting part of an audience, however much he may succeed in interesting those who already hold the same opinions as himself. When a play is written along such lines the question must be so handled as to please those who agree with the author's premise, while at the same time presenting arguments sufficiently strong to his opponents to make them see, temporarily at least, his point of view. All kinds of people make up an audience and it is not well to antagonize, to say nothing of the fact that the writer is sure to be refused a hearing by any manager who happens to hold opposing views —unless his play is big enough in treatment to somewhat conceal his motive. J. H. Gardiner, in The Making of Arguments, says: "In no case, with a popular audience is it very safe to depend much on the burden of proof; almost always it is better to jump in and actively build up the argument on your own side. In argument, as in strategy, take the offensive whenever you can. " By "taking the offensive" in play-writing is meant that you must prove your points as you go along and not wait for possible disagreements to spur you into explanations. Forestall Everyone of them ; if you cannot, you have no right to even attempt the propaganda drama. But, if a play is not propaganda, not for the purpose of making converts to the author's point of view, why risk giving offense to part of an audience when there is no possible dramatic reason for doing so? It is done, oh, yes, every day by the unthinking aspirant. As padding (i. e. , any extraneous matter used as " filler " to make a play long enough) he will drag in a discussion on some question of the day, one that in no way furthers his play or story, and treat it so flippantly or ignorantly as to disgust everyone who has thought on the subject. There was a play which had a different plot in each of the five acts, each act was laid in a different part of the world, and each act contained some entirely irrelevant conversation between the characters. One of these arguments was of the order I have just been discussing—the kind that has no business in a play unless it helps the story to get somewhere, and which in that case must be so treated as not to insult the intelligence of those who probably know more of the subject than the writer. Charles Frohman said once in an interview, when explaining why he refused to even read a certain type of play on such subjects as the labor question, women's suffrage, and so forth : "If the author does not take sides, his play has no conclusion ; if he does take sides, he offends at least half his audience. " Your manager wants everybody to come to the theater, not just those interested in your subject. So, while I know there is a distinct place in the drama for the propaganda play, experience does not lead me to believe the novice will write it. And let me again remind you—my remarks throughout are meant for the novice. The dead issue. If denied the propaganda play, do not go to the opposite extreme and take as your motive some subject or issue already settled, and rightly settled, to the satisfaction of the world at large. There are such subjects, matters in which justice and civilization have prevailed and which in their present form have become a matter of course. Such subjects are not for the drama unless the writer can drag into light some new story of the struggle which caused the change. Deal carefully and sparingly with the "dead issue. " Do not misunderstand me. These subjects used as background against which your characters love and struggle are for the drama or any other form of writing. It is the use of such subjects as theme, or motive, to which I am objecting. Take as a suggestive example a play of the American Civil War. If your play merely uses this period and its struggles as background and causation for your characters and their actions, you have a right to use it, though the war is over these many years. But if your reason for writing the play is to prove something about the war itself, and the warstory is the main theme, and the loves and struggles of your people the medium used to convey your arguments about the war, do you not see that a "dead issue" has been raised, and fought over? And to what purpose? I am not quoting from any particular play, nor do I recall one written with this motive. But I have seen plays—in MS. —on issues as old and as hardly fought and finished as the play which I have suggested. category:Sources of plot